When it comes to providing employee perks, not every company has the luxury of an office gym, or the budget for an unlimited dry-cleaning bill to accommodate the famous Flight Centre slip-and-slide. However, here are some incredible perks being offered by some of the world’s most forward-thinking companies that can be embraced to create happier and productive employees.

Sabbaticals with Deloitte

When that itch comes for time off, there is no better way to keep your top performers than by giving them the freedom to stretch their wings and grow. Deloitte offer two sabbatical programs for all employees: Firstly, an unpaid one-month sabbatical that can be taken for any reason, as well as a sabbatical between three- to six-months for personal or professional growth opportunities. This longer option comes with 40% pay too.

No Set Workdays with Netflix

We all work at different times of the day so why should employers be restricted or told when they should work. Focus on the outcome and not the hours. This is why Netflix have decided to do away with set hours and give their employees “Freedom and Responsibility”. Their argument is that as long as you do the work, you don’t need to work standard hours. Netflix also say, “There is also a no clothing policy at Netflix, but no one comes to work naked”. In other words… “you don’t need policies for everything.”

Unlimited Annual Leave at Virgin

Richard Branson introduced unlimited annual leave for all Virgin employees. This was actually inspired by the changes at Netflix. Branson decided that if work hours aren’t being tracked, then why should holidays be? Virgin allows all full-time staff to take time off whenever they want for as long as they want, and they don’t have to get approval or keep track of their days away. However, employees must only take a holiday when they are up to date with all their work and their absence wont set the rest of the team back.

Envato – The 10-4 Workday

Melbourne startup Envato have followed Netflix’s lead and changed their core business hours to 10am – 4pm, allowing for parents to work around school drop-offs and pick-ups, or simply sleep in if they’re not morning people. HR Director James Law says, “At Envato we understand that people have lives, and that work is only one part of this. We try and make work as flexible as possible by allowing people to work from anywhere that suits how they want to live, and where they are most effective. That means we have people working from home, cafes, shared work spaces and even overseas!”

and then the little guys….

Doona Days at TalentVine

35% of employees take a sick day when they feel absolutely fine. Often this is just to get some personal errands done, recover from a fierce hangover or get the mental health back in check with a day at the beach. We all know this happens, so let’s just be honest about it. Plus, giving your team the opportunity to have a wellness day has huge benefits for them. At TalentVine, one of our core values is to ‘speak the truth even when our knees shake’, so instead of creating an environment where someone in the team needs to phone in whilst lying upside down so that their fake-sick voice sounds really croaky (yeah, it works, try it!), everyone in the team gets two days a year when they can just own up and say that they won’t make it in today, and be honest about why. HSBC trialled this last yearand have decided it was a massive success.

If you had any interesting employee perks at your workplace, share this on Linkedin along with your perk and we’ll write another post including your perk.